[i习作temp] Issue144,有拍必回 [复制链接]

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电梯直达

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发表于 2010-4-7 00:21:53 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

144"It is the artist, not the critic,* who gives society something of lasting value."
*a person who evaluates works of art, such as novels, films, music, paintings, etc.

提纲：
1. 艺术家是价值的创造者。在个人层面上，给人们带来情感体验；在社会层面上，是文化的保持者和传递者。
2. 人们常常很难真正理解艺术作品；艺术批评者有助于人们理解艺术作品的价值。

The love of beauty seems to be an essential part of human nature. And it is undeniable that all great art has the power of creating a more beautiful world. A world devoid of art would be colorless and unconceivable. Works of art, such as novels, films, music and paintings, have lots of functions for individuals and for society. However, due to lacking of skills and sensibilities, it is often difficult for common people to fully enjoy art without the help of artistic critics.

Admittedly, it is artist who creates something of lasting value for society. Artists create irresistible works by making inner thoughts and feelings visible or audible and the public can subsequently enjoy aesthetic experiences through appreciating these compelling works rendered by artist. At the personal level, art possesses the potential to evoke our inward feelings. While contemplating The Flower Carrier, created by the great Mexican artist, Diego Rivera, one may feel the great burden the peasant must endure. At the social level, art regarded as culture carrier plays an essential role in sustaining and changing culture. This is mainly reflected in two aspects. Firstly, through presenting the realistic form of the ethos of a culture, art serves as an important component to sustain the thriving of the culture. For example, well-proportioned sculptural figures have embodied the idealism of the ancient Greeks. Northwest Coast Indian totems have represented common people’s beliefs in pantheon. Besides, artists substantially contribute to cultural changes through introducing innovations in forms and techniques. An excellent example of this phenomenon is the bent plywood chair developed by Charles Eames in the 1940's.It influenced the direction of many subsequent chair designs, and the move to the "ergonomic" orientation that prevails today.

However, the art can be valuable only after it has been thoroughly understood. This requires people has experience or education in the type of art being appreciated. Yet the fact is most people have little opportunity for exploring the world of art and lack basic trainings to evaluate masterpiece. As a consequence, their responses which result from personal taste rather than subject represented by the artistic works are ordinarily superficial. For instance, when one observes self-portrait of Van Gogh, he/she may assume that the artist is a weak old peasant, even though there are very vibrant and conflicting colors in the painting. While a person observes women portraits painted by Amedeo Modigliani, he/she may take it for granted that these ladies are ugly, as a result of ignorance of the expressive purpose of distortions, exaggerations and simplification in this type of art.

In this sense, art critic, a person who writes articles to provide professional analysis and reasonable opinions of artistic works, can help the people understand art works. His/her skills and related trainings can be useful for discerning subtle virtue of the works. Besides, due to rich experience in processing the background that relates to the works being reviewed, he/she is also capable of making informed judgments about artistic value of works. Finally, he/she can thus explicate to public the true value of the artistic works. Therefore, generally speaking, art critic plays a significant role to articulately convey to the public what the works of art express and how the inner emotions are created.

To sum up, the artist is the one who creates beauty, and the artistic critic is the one who spreads this beauty out.